The Cost Of Repairing The Pantura Route Reaches IDR 6.5 T In The Last 6 Years, The Ministry Of PUPR Reveals The Reason

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing (PUPR) said that the cost of repairing the Pantura Line in the last six years has reached IDR 6.5 trillion.

For this year, the budget allocation for the improvement of the Pantura Line reached IDR 1.3 trillion.

Director General of Highways of the Ministry of PUPR Hedy Rahadian revealed the reasons behind the large cost of repairing the Pantura Line, one of which is the lack of trucks or heavy vehicles crossing toll roads.

Based on the records of the Directorate General of Highways in 2021, 18.52 percent of heavy vehicles cross toll roads. However, this figure decreased in 2022 to 16.63 percent.

"This is a problem because in the past we hoped that trucks would use a lot of toll roads, but it turns out that the truck's favorite road is still a non-toll road. That's why we still spend quite a lot of Preservation costs, reaching Rp1.3 trillion," Hedy said in a Hearing Meeting (RDP) with Commission V DPR RI in Jakarta, Wednesday, April 12.

Hedy even suspected that the problem lies in the amount of toll rates. However, according to him, there are other problems that prevent truck drivers from crossing toll roads. "We have previously done massive cuts according to President Jokowi's orders of up to Rp1,000 per km, but apparently there are other factors besides the tariff problem, I think it is related to this truck problem," he said.

Similar conditions can also be seen in the record proportion of vehicles crossing the route as a whole. The average proportion of vehicles passing through the Pantura Line reaches 80.19 percent in 2021 and increases to 80.57 percent in 2022.

"So, those who take the toll road for the total vehicle are around 20 percent, and 20 percent of these are almost all long-distance traffic," said Hedy.

Previously, the Ministry of PUPR said that the absorption of roads on the North Coast Line (Pantura) had reached 96.15 percent.

This indicates that about 4 percent of the total road length or about 60-70 km from the road is in a problematic condition, aka damaged.

The Pantura Line referred to by Bina Marga is a road from Merak to Banyuwangi, with a total length of 1,716 km.